Is Modernism a Grift?

In every era, Muslims have faced the challenge of navigating between fidelity to revelation and the pressures of the surrounding culture. That challenge is not new. What is new is the emergence of a self-reinforcing system — a feedback loop — in which theological compromise generates revenue, that revenue builds institutional power, and that institutional power pushes further compromise. The question is no longer simply whether Islamic modernism is theologically sound. The question is whether the entire apparatus surrounding it has become, structurally if not always intentionally, a grift.

This is not an accusation of individual malice. It is an observation about incentives. When the financial and social rewards for softening orthodox positions vastly outweigh the rewards for maintaining them, the system itself becomes the problem — regardless of what any single actor believes in their heart.

The Protestant Parallel Nobody Wants to Talk About
Western commentators have spent decades calling for an "Islamic Reformation," invoking the Protestant Reformation as though it were an unambiguous good. What they rarely acknowledge is what that reformation actually produced. As Raymond Ibrahim has argued, those in the West calling for an Islamic reformation are really calling for the secularization of Islam — the sidelining of Islamic law from Muslim society. The Protestant Reformation was not simply a spiritual renewal. Research published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics has demonstrated that the Reformation functioned as a competitive shock that shifted the allocation of resources from religious to secular uses. Protestant reformers offered a lower-cost alternative to the Catholic Church, and this shock to the market for salvation also disrupted the market for political legitimacy.

The Prophet ﷺ warned us about exactly this trajectory. In a hadith recorded in both Sahih al-Bukhari (7320) and Sahih Muslim (2669), Abu Sa'id al-Khudri reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: "You will follow the ways of those nations who were before you, span by span and cubit by cubit, so much so that even if they entered the hole of a lizard, you would follow them." The Companions asked, "O Messenger of Allah, do you mean the Jews and the Christians?" He ﷺ said, "Who else?" The Protestant Reformation hollowed out Christianity from a lived tradition into a cultural identity, and the same process is now being replicated — with the same economic logic — within Western Muslim communities.

A new class of religious personalities is offering a version of Islam that costs less — not in dollars, but in social friction. It requires fewer sacrifices, generates less discomfort with liberal norms, and fits more neatly into the rhythms of American consumer culture. And just as the Protestant Reformation ultimately enriched secular rulers at the expense of religious authority, the modernization of Western Islam is enriching a class of celebrity scholars and the institutions they helm — at the expense of the tradition they claim to represent.

The Theological Drift: From Orthodoxy to Palatability
The erosion is not hypothetical. It is documented, often in the words of the figures involved.

Take Omar Suleiman, the founder and president of Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. In the wake of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Suleiman organized a statement of condemnation signed by Muslim scholars and leaders — a reasonable response. But the trajectory since has been telling. In a Dallas Morning News interview, Suleiman spoke of standing in solidarity with the LGBTQ community and stated that whether mosques accept gay Muslims depends on "how American those mosques are, how acclimated they are to the country they are in." Mosque acceptance of homosexuality, in this framing, becomes a marker of successful assimilation — not a theological question to be weighed against fourteen centuries of scholarly consensus.

In 2023, Suleiman signed the "Navigating Differences" statement alongside more than 200 imams, which broadly aligns with the traditional view that homosexual relationships are immoral. But critics, most vocally Daniel Haqiqatjou of Muslim Skeptic, have argued that figures like Suleiman and his frequent collaborator Yasir Qadhi maintain a pattern of verbally affirming traditional positions while simultaneously platforming pro-LGBT activists, sharing stages with them at conferences, and lending them religious legitimacy. The accusation is not that these scholars openly endorse fahisha. It is that they provide the institutional cover under which the boundaries of orthodoxy are quietly redrawn.

Qadhi's own trajectory illustrates this. He was originally known for robust adherence to traditional Sunni doctrine during his years at the Islamic University of Madinah. He now openly states he is no longer the conservative Salafi he once was. Many commentators and scholars have challenged his more recent statements for departing from Muslim orthodoxy and for attempting to introduce rejected ideas to his young, impressionable audience. When confronted, Qadhi has dismissed the repetition of classical scholarly opinions as mere "regurgitation" — a word that, as Haqiqatjou has noted, reveals a posture of intellectual superiority over the very tradition these figures are supposed to be transmitting.

The term that has crystallized around this phenomenon is "Compassionate Imams" — a label coined by Haqiqatjou that has gained significant traction in intra-Muslim discourse. The label points to a specific pattern: scholars who position themselves as theologically conservative while functionally accommodating liberal norms on gender, sexuality, and political alliance. The compassion is real, but it flows in only one direction — toward alignment with the prevailing culture, never toward the preservation of positions that might generate social cost.

Follow the Money
If the theological drift were happening in a financial vacuum, it would be a purely intellectual debate. It is not happening in a vacuum.

Allah ﷻ warned repeatedly in the Quran about those who trade His revelation for worldly gain. In Surah al-Baqarah (2:41), He commands: "And do not exchange My signs for a small price, and fear Me alone." Ibn Kathir commented on this verse: "Do not substitute faith in My Revelations and belief in My Messengers with the life of this world and its lusts which are but little and bound to end." And in Surah at-Tawbah (9:34), Allah ﷻ describes religious leaders who "devour the wealth of mankind in falsehood, and hinder them from the way of Allah" — a verse that Ibn Kathir explained applies to those who "sell the religion in return for worldly gains, using their positions and status among people to illegally devour their property." Sufyan bin 'Uyaynah, the great early scholar, drew the lesson sharply: "Those among our scholars who become corrupt are similar to the Jews, while those among our worshippers who become misguided are like Christians."

In a hadith narrated in Sunan Abu Dawud, Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: "Anyone who acquires knowledge of things by which Allah's Good Pleasure is sought, but acquires it only to attain some worldly gain, will not smell the fragrance of Jannah on the Day of Resurrection." With this prophetic framework in mind, the financial landscape of Western Islamic institutions becomes deeply uncomfortable to examine.

Yaqeen Institute, founded by Omar Suleiman, reported revenue of nearly $9 million in 2023 and holds $5 million in assets. It has more than 1.7 million YouTube subscribers and has received over 270 million views. It has collaborated with Stanford University, NYU, and Harvard Divinity School. Its endowment strategy explicitly aims to cover 70 percent of operational costs through a permanent fund, with Ramadan and Dhul Hijjah serving as the primary fundraising windows. Yaqeen positions itself as the antidote to the "Islamophobia industry" — and the framing is effective. Donations flow in because the content is polished, accessible, and designed to make Muslims feel confident in their faith. The question is: confident in which version of their faith?

Bayyinah Institute, the vehicle of Nouman Ali Khan, took a different but equally revealing path. It is believed to be the first institution in the US to turn Quran study into a for-profit business. It expanded to include Bayyinah TV — described as the "Netflix of Quran lectures" — complete with mobile apps and a sprawling new campus funded by millions in donations. Khan bet correctly that there was a market for Muslims who wanted a deeper understanding of Islam without relying on traditional clerics. That market insight was commercially brilliant. Whether it was good for the tradition is another matter.

The conference circuit completes the picture. Figures like Yasir Qadhi, Omar Suleiman, and Hamza Yusuf are listed on professional celebrity speaker booking agencies — the same agencies that manage politicians and motivational speakers — with fees determined by booking agents based on demand, audience size, and event prestige. Shaykh Haitham al-Haddad addressed this directly in a widely circulated article, warning that Muslim speakers have become bound in exclusive contracts with organizations, limiting their dawah to paying clients. He noted that families and youth who cannot afford tickets are being shut out from access to these figures. When a scholar's availability is determined by a booking agent rather than the needs of the ummah, something fundamental has shifted.

The major conventions reinforce this ecosystem. ISNA conventions at their peak drew close to 50,000 attendees. ICNA-MAS conventions draw over 25,000. These events feature ticketed admission, massive vendor bazaars, indoor amusement parks, matchmaking services, and the same celebrity speakers rotating through the same circuit. The conventions are not simply educational. They are commercial operations where the modernized, accessible version of Islam is the product — and the celebrity scholars are the draw.

Suhoor Fest: The Feedback Loop in Miniature
If you want to see the entire mechanism operating in a single observable phenomenon, look at Suhoor Fest.

What began in 2021 as a few food trucks in a Newark, California mall parking lot has exploded into the Bay Area's largest halal food festival, drawing tens of thousands of attendees and earning the nickname "Muslim Coachella." It has since spawned versions in Dearborn, Dallas-Fort Worth, North Carolina, and Chicago. The Texas Suhoor Fest drew over 10,000 attendees to its inaugural event. The Chicago version welcomed over 12,000.

The concept is simple: a late-night food and shopping event during Ramadan, centered around the pre-dawn suhoor meal. It ends with a communal prayer before Fajr. Supporters describe it as a way to bring festivity to Ramadan for Muslims in the West and to support local Muslim-owned businesses.

The criticism, however, has been fierce — and it comes from within the community. Critics describe mass levels of free mixing, with the events at times functioning as what one widely-shared TikTok described as "a halal nightclub." The tagline "where the food is halal, but the vibes aren't" has become a recurring critique across Muslim social media. One satirical website, CancelSuhoorFest.com, catalogues complaints: overpriced tickets, $18 shawarma, attendees performing qiyam al-layl at 2am while what they describe as "fitna" unfolds around them, and people missing Fajr entirely because the event runs until dawn.

The issue of ikhtilat — the free mixing of unrelated men and women — is not a marginal or extreme position. It is grounded in clear textual evidence that the modernist project has quietly set aside. Abu Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet ﷺ said: "The best of the men's rows is the first and the worst is the last, and the best of the women's rows is the last and the worst is the first." (Sahih Muslim, 664). Even in the act of prayer — the most sacred communal gathering — the Shariah mandated physical separation between men and women. Ibn 'Umar reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: "We should leave this door (of the mosque) for women." And Naafi' narrated: "Ibn 'Umar never again entered through that door until he died." (Sunan Abu Dawud, 484). Umm Salamah reported that when the Prophet ﷺ completed the prayer, the women would get up to leave and he would wait before standing — to give women time to depart before the men. (Sahih al-Bukhari). Ibn Hajr commented on this practice: "In the hadith, we see that it is disliked for men and women to mix on the road. How much more, then, should such mixing be avoided inside of houses." (Fath al-Bari, 2/336).

If the Prophet ﷺ took such meticulous care to prevent even incidental mixing at the exits of his own masjid, what would he say about a carnival-atmosphere late-night festival during Ramadan where men and women crowd together around food trucks until Fajr? The question answers itself. But the answer is commercially inconvenient — which is precisely why it is no longer asked.

Suhoor Fest is the feedback loop operating at ground level. A sacred practice — the pre-dawn Ramadan meal — is commercialized into an entertainment product. The spiritual element is retained as branding (the event ends with prayer). Free mixing and a festival atmosphere normalize behaviors that traditional scholarship would restrict. Vendors profit. Organizers profit. The event grows. More sponsorship comes in. The boundaries expand further the following year. The spiritual wrapper makes the entire operation feel Islamic. The commercial core makes it feel modern. And anyone who objects is painted as joyless or extreme.

The Trillion-Dollar Context
Suhoor Fest is a microcosm, but the macro picture is where the full scale of the incentive structure becomes clear.

According to the State of the Global Islamic Economy 2024/25 report, Muslim consumer spending across halal economy sectors — food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, modest fashion, travel, and media — reached $2.43 trillion in 2023, with projections to rise to $3.36 trillion by 2028. Islamic finance assets stand at $4.93 trillion. The modest fashion market alone is valued at $327 billion. Muslim-friendly travel is the fastest growing sector, projected to hit $384 billion by 2028.

The halal economy has evolved, as industry analysts describe it, from merely food products to a holistic concept encompassing the entire value of commercial activities — extending into business, trade, and lifestyle as a global symbol for both Muslims and non-Muslims. Major corporations like Nestlé, Tesco, and Unilever have aggressively expanded their halal-certified product lines. Halal food alone accounts for roughly 35% of Nestlé's global sales.

This is the environment in which Islamic modernism operates. A $2.43 trillion consumer market does not emerge from a community that is insular, traditional, and resistant to Western commercial norms. It emerges from a community that has been integrated into global consumer culture — a community whose religious identity has been made legible to marketers. The modernization of Islam is not merely a theological project. It is the precondition for the monetization of Muslim identity at an industrial scale.

The feedback loop operates across all of these layers simultaneously. Modernized theology produces Muslims who are more comfortable participating in Western consumer culture. That participation generates an enormous addressable market. That market attracts capital. That capital funds the institutions and platforms that produce more modernized theology. The cycle repeats, and at every stage, someone is getting paid.

The Objection — And Why It Falls Short
The most common defense of these figures and institutions is that they are simply meeting Muslims where they are. The West is not the Muslim world. Muslims here face unique pressures. Rigidity will drive young people away from the faith entirely. Better to have them engaged with a softer version of Islam than to lose them to atheism.

This argument has surface plausibility. But it assumes that the only two options are wholesale modernization or wholesale rejection. It ignores the possibility of faithfully transmitting the tradition while contextualizing it for Western life — something that classical scholars did for centuries across diverse cultural settings without abandoning core principles. It also conveniently serves the financial interests of the people making the argument. The scholar who says "we must soften this position or lose the youth" is also the scholar whose audience, revenue, and cultural relevance depend on that softening.

It is also worth noting that the critique cuts both ways. Haqiqatjou himself runs the Alasna Institute, which offers paid courses. The "anti-modernist" side has its own monetization. The difference, however, is one of scale and structural incentive. A $9 million-per-year institute with partnerships at Stanford and Harvard, whose president delivers invocations in the US House of Representatives, operates within a fundamentally different incentive structure than an independent critic running a blog and a course catalog. The former is rewarded by the system for accommodation. The latter is punished by it for resistance.

What Is Actually Lost
The deepest cost of this feedback loop is not financial. It is theological.

Every generation of Muslims has inherited a tradition — a chain of transmission stretching back to the Prophet, sall Allahu alayhi wa sallam — that includes not only the Quran and Sunnah but the accumulated wisdom of scholars who spent their lives reconciling revelation with the challenges of their age. That tradition includes disagreement, flexibility, and genuine intellectual diversity. It is not monolithic. But it does have boundaries. It has red lines that were maintained across the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali schools — positions on which scholarly consensus (ijma') was clear and has held for over a millennium.

What the modernist project does is treat those boundaries as negotiable — not on the basis of new textual evidence or superior juristic reasoning, but on the basis of what a Western audience will accept. The criterion for revision is not "what does the evidence say?" but "what will make us more palatable?" When palatability becomes the usul, the tradition is no longer being transmitted. It is being edited. And in many cases, it is being concealed. Allah ﷻ warned in Surah al-Baqarah (2:159): "Indeed, those who conceal what We sent down of clear proofs and guidance after We made it clear for the people in the Scripture — those are cursed by Allah and cursed by those who curse." When a scholar knows the classical position on ikhtilat, on the boundaries of walaa' and baraa', on the impermissibility of normalizing fahisha — and chooses not to state it plainly because it would cost him his audience — that is not contextualizing. That is concealing.

And the edits always move in one direction. No one is getting a larger following by making Islam more demanding. No institute is pulling in $9 million a year by telling Western Muslims that the tradition requires more sacrifice, not less. The financial incentives and the theological trajectory are perfectly aligned — and both point away from orthodoxy.

The scholars of the past warned about exactly this dynamic. Ibn al-Jawzi wrote in Talbis Iblis about the dangers of scholars associating with rulers — and he was referring to Muslim rulers. How much more cautious should one be when the scholars are closely collaborating with non-Muslim political actors, appearing on their platforms, delivering prayers in their legislatures, and aligning their theological positions with their cultural expectations?

The modernist will respond that engagement is not endorsement. But at a certain point, the distinction collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. When your theological positions, your political alliances, your institutional partnerships, and your revenue streams all point in the same direction — toward the accommodation of liberal norms — it becomes very difficult to argue that the accommodation is incidental rather than structural.

The Question That Remains
Is modernism a grift? If by "grift" we mean a conscious, cynical scheme to defraud Muslims of their faith for profit, the answer is probably no — at least not for most of the individuals involved. Many of these scholars likely believe they are serving the ummah. Many of the Muslims who donate to their institutions feel genuine benefit from their content.

But if by "grift" we mean a system in which financial incentives have become so thoroughly aligned with theological compromise that the two can no longer be disentangled — a system that rewards those who soften the tradition and marginalizes those who don't — then yes. The structure is a grift, even if the individuals within it are not grifters.

The Muslim community in the West stands at a crossroads. Down one path lies the trajectory of Western Christianity: a slow, generational hollowing-out in which the forms of religion are preserved while the substance is replaced by whatever the culture demands. Ibn al-Mubarak, the great scholar and muhaddith, diagnosed this disease centuries ago: "What corrupted the religion, except kings and wicked scholars and monks." The kings today are the market forces of a trillion-dollar halal economy. The wicked scholars — or at least the structurally compromised ones — are the celebrity figures whose theological positions drift in lockstep with their revenue. Down the other path lies the harder, less glamorous, less profitable work of transmitting a living tradition — with all its demands, all its discomforts, and all its refusals to be made palatable.

The first path has a $2.43 trillion economy behind it. The second has only the promise that what Allah has revealed is sufficient, and that the truth does not need a booking agent. As Allah ﷻ says in Surah an-Nahl (16:95): "And do not exchange the covenant of Allah for a small price. Indeed, what is with Allah is best for you, if only you could know."

Wallahu a'lam.